Minority Conferences

Reaching Young Minority Biophysicists: Conference Roundup

This fall, the Biophysical Society participated in three of the nation’s largest, minority studentcentered scientific conferences. At each conference, BPS members judged undergraduate and graduate student posters, selecting 16 total winners of BPSsponsored poster awards.

The first conference of 2012 was the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) Conference, which took place in Washington, DC, in late September. Minority Affairs Committee (MAC) members Chandran Sabanayagam, University of Delaware, and Kandice Tanner, NIH, served as judges.

In October, BPS exhibited at the Society for the Advancement of Hispanics/Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) National Conference in Seattle, Washington. MAC member Luis Marky, University of Nebraska Medical Center, organized a biophysics symposium, “Cutting Edge Research in the Biophysical Chemistry of Nucleic Acid and Proteins,” where Marvin Bayro, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Silvia Cavagnero, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Gabriele Varani and Rachel Kelvit, both from University of Washington, spoke. Marky, Bayro and Cavagnero also met with students at the BPS booth and judged posters.

Last but not least, BPS headed to San Jose, California, for the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in November. At the BPS booth, staff members talked about student opportunities offered by the Society, including the Summer Course in Biophysics, an 11-week introductory course sponsored by BPS, funded by the NIGMS, and hosted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Local members, Daryl Eggers, San Jose State University, and Ricky Cheng, Stanford University, judged posters.

Additionally, two students from SACNAS and two from ABRCMS were selected for MAC Travel Awards to the BPS’s 2013 Annual Meeting. Winners Maia Kinnebrew, University of California, Santa Barbara; Jessica Morgan, California State University, Fullerton; Ninotchska De Valle, University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo; and Alan Stern, City College of New York, will present their posters at the Meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Biophysical Society was founded in 1958 to encourage development and dissemination of knowledge in biophysics. It does so through its many programs, including its meetings, publications, and committee outreach activities.